This Norton Critical Edition includes:

• Nick Bromell and R. Blakeslee Gilpin's introduction to Frederick Douglass's second autobiography, providing the deep contextualisation teachers want and students need.
• The first edition text (1855), accompanied by the editors' detailed explanatory footnotes.
• Twelve contemporary works that relate to My Bondage and My Freedom, including writings by Frederick Douglass, Benjamin Franklin, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry David Thoreau, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Jacobs.
• Nineteen critical assessments of My Bondage and My Freedom-nine contemporary and ten recent interpretations-to inspire classroom discussion and research topics across the curriculum
• A chronology of Frederick Douglass's life and work and a selected bibliography.